Marine Museum getting back on its feet

Just days after he and the board of trustees took the reins of the failing Marine Museum at Fall River, the Rev. Robert Lawrence could scarcely contain his enthusiasm. “I am just absolutely overcome with by the response of everybody in the community,” said Lawrence, elected chairman of the board of trustees.

Just days after he and the board of trustees took the reins of the failing Marine Museum at Fall River, the Rev. Robert Lawrence could scarcely contain his enthusiasm.

“I am just absolutely overcome with by the response of everybody in the community,” said Lawrence, elected chairman of the board of trustees.

He gave a couple of quick examples.

Wednesday at 10 a.m. he was walking into the Water Street museum at opening time when a couple of guys in a pickup yelled out.

“Hey, Rev. Lawrence, we just joined the Marine Museum,” yelled the occupants, identifying themselves as members of the Tin Can Sailors association.

Lawrence and Zelma Braga, the museum’s treasurer many years ago, attended the Rotary Club meeting the next day and picked up eight new members.

And on Friday, Sheila Salvo, the elected first vice president and who chaired the museum in the late 1980s, told about a Virginia couple who spend summers on Cape Cod and came in to pay their $40 membership dues, wanting to lend support.

Margot Cottrell, the second vice president, along with Salvo and a few others, have led the charge over the past year to gain participation in museum affairs during a period when the charity followed few regulations, had a handful of members and lost its nonprofit status.

“We have slightly over 200 members,” Cottrell, a museum director in the early years, said less than a week after 61 people signed up as members and elected a new board.

Along with Cottrell, Salvo and Lawrence, Jasper Coffman is the treasurer and Patricia Lawrence (not related to the chairman) is secretary.

Their second board of trustees meeting is set for tonight at 6 p.m. at the 70 Water St. museum, with a lengthy agenda.

They plan to add a vice chairman, an assistant treasurer and a corresponding secretary to the officers and make committee assignments among many other plans and updates, Lawrence said.

Leaders of the new group of volunteers had a number of small and significant pieces of information that they eagerly shared:

• The old museum phone number is now the new phone number, with a new detailed message about admission. The number is 508-674-3533; hours are Wednesday to Saturday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.; admission is $6 for adults, $5 for seniors and children ages 6 to 12, and free for kids younger than 6.

• All locks and a new alarm system have been changed, and paid for through a donation.

• Maintenance crews from the Battleship Cove museum have been trimming grass and shrubs, removing trash, repairing a crack in the 100-foot mast flagpole and prepping the 15-foot high Coast Guard buoy in front for repainting, among other tasks.

• About 25 volunteers have come to help this week doing tasks that have included moving exhibits to better vantage points and taking stock of the artifacts and inventories.

Page 2 of 2 - “Everything seems to be intact,” Salvo said. Considerable inventorying needs to be done of thousands of museum artifacts that remain in storage.

• Cottrell said she notified Dorothy Briegel that her donation of 1,000 books comprising the “John A. Breynaert Marine Library,” from her late brother, was intact on the second floor of the museum, which is closed to the public.

The family recently raised concerns after inquiries went unanswered. She said she also notified retired Judge William Carey that his donated artifacts of the Priscilla steamship were located in a box, following his recent inquiry.

• Lawrence and Coffman opened a new bank account and deposited “more than $3,000” from membership proceeds. Jason Rua of RDA Insurance on Friday took out the first corporate membership, a $350 donation.

• Lawrence contacted two people owed outstanding bills to say they will be paid and to ask for their patience. He estimates the museum owes about $30,000, about two-thirds of it for back taxes to the city.

Board member Thomas Murray, a certified public accountant, reported to Lawrence that following the former chairman’s recent work to reinstitute the museum’s nonprofit status, he’s contacted the Internal Revenue Service.

Murray answered the IRS’s remaining questions Tuesday, and said he hopes to have a response on its nonprofit status in about two weeks.

Officers met Thursday with Mayor Will Flanagan to discuss the process that could bring some relief from those delinquent taxes, if and when the museum is reinstated as a charitable nonprofit organization.

“There’s a likelihood it can happen,” Flanagan said of forgiving $20,000 in overdue taxes, the bulk of which are property taxes from losing nonprofit status.

“They have to make their case, and I told them the process they have to follow,” Flanagan said. He said the law allows an abatement “if they can make a compelling case for an abatement.”